Is all of this correct about antibiotic resistant bacteria and does this have anything to do with evolution?

Question

Antibiotics are substances that are secreted by bacteria to kill other bacteria when competing for limited nutrients. The antibiotics used today are not the actual secretions, but derivatives of these natural products. Unfortunately, some bacteria have become resistant to the antibiotics through possible mutation.

Bacteria can gain resistance through either mutation or using horizontal gene transfer, where they swap DNA.

Antibiotics kill bacteria by disrupting a certain important function that the bacteria do to survive. It disrupts the function by combining a protein with the original, so the original cannot function properly.

The attacked protein is normally involved in copying DNA, making proteins or making the bacterial cell wall. If the bacteria have a mutation in the DNA which codes for one of those proteins, the antibiotic cannot bind to the altered protein and the mutated bacteria survive. In the presence of antibiotics, the process of natural selection will occur, favouring the survival of the bacteria with the mutation.

This is because they can survive, even when antibiotics are used, and can continue to reproduce and make the person ill while the original bacteria that haven’t mutated die. However a problem is that the altered protein is not as efficient as the normal one, meaning that in normal circumstances, the original bacteria survive better.

A famous example occurred during the anthrax attacks in 2001. Possible victims were given Ciprofloxacin. It binds to a bacterial protein called gyrase, which means the bacteria take much longer to reproduce. This means the body’s immune system can eradicate the bacteria as the bacteria reproduce so much slower.

However, some bacteria had mutations in the genes for the gyrase protein. The mutated bacteria survive because Ciprofloxacin could not combine with the mutated gyrase.

Bacteria can also become antibiotic resistant by gaining mutated DNA from other bacteria. Unlike humans, bacteria can swap DNA. However, this is not an example of evolution as no new DNA is generated, it is just moved around. This mechanism of exchanging DNA is necessary for bacteria to survive in extreme or rapidly changing environments.

Answer 1

This is deceptive.  I'll skip the trivial errors until the end.  They discussed gyrase because they claim it demonstrates the point they want to make.  If if had been shown that the altered gyrase was actually inferior to the wild type, they would have said it.

They do not discuss penicillinase.  This is a compound that actually degrades penicillin.  There is no inactivating mutation to a target in this case.  The claim is that the gene was always around, but it is unsubstantiated.  While the development of a penicillinase-like antibiotic degrading gene has not been observed, enough novel genes have been observed in bacteria to say that it is the likely source.  There are several classes of penicillinase with distinct structures related to other enzymes.

The whole "no new information" mantra of Creationists is unfounded.  Too many examples of information increasing mutations are documented.  By all standards of information theory, this holds true.

As for factual errors, many antibiotics came from fungi (penicillin).  Sulfonamides were derivatives of chemical dyes and predate penicillin.  Many penicillins are derived directly from fungal cultures, and some new forms were created by directed evolution.

Transposable elements (transposons) are found in human cells.  Although clear horizontal gene transfer has not been observed in human, there are more bacteria in you gut than there are humans on Earth, and at 12 hours to reproduce (under gut conditions), they have as many generations in a year as humans in a millennium.

Answer 2

Websites that attempt to interpret scientific results often skew them to fit their own perception of reality (this is not true for some reputable websites, however).

You need to search the primary literature.  Here you will find peer-reviewed documentation of the methods the scientists used, the results they found, and their interpretation of their results.  You can also look at their methods and replicate your own experiment, or examine the data and come to your own conclusion.  This is how the scientific community works -- scientists are constantly verifying methods of analysis, results, and interpretation of other scientists.  In fact, every single scientific publication is subjected to this scrutiny.  This insures that scientific interpretations are not the bias views of one person or organization (much like many creationist websites) -- rather they are approved to be acceptable by many scientists.

Answer 3

Moving DNA around and losing information is just as much evolution as changing or adding DNA is. The important thing is that the results have an effect and are inherited.

I might also mention that antibiotics are not just produced by bacteria. Penicillin is a mold, for example.

Answer 4

Antibiotic resistance:

antibiotics kill off the majority of the antigens, then only the resistant antigen is left, there is no competition for it so it multiplies and after a while u have a new strain of bacteria which is all resistant to the antibiotics and u get antibiotic resistance.

Answer 5

Your discussion of antibiotics is a bit sketchy but we can let that go for now.

Evolution is defined as a change in gene frequency in a population over time. It doesn't matter if the gene frequencies involve new genes or not, what's important is the relative abundance of the genes in the population. Note that this is distinct from speciation.

You say that, "Bacteria can also become antibiotic resistant by gaining mutated DNA from other bacteria. Unlike humans, bacteria can swap DNA. However, this is not an example of evolution as no new DNA is generated, it is just moved around. This mechanism of exchanging DNA is necessary for bacteria to survive in extreme or rapidly changing environments."

This is incorrect. When bacteria swap plasmids (circular bits of bacterial DNA), whether the plasmids are related to antibiotics or not and whether the plasmids are mutations or not, it changes the gene frequencies in their population so it IS evolution.

The old creationist argument that mutated genes never produce new information but always take away information is absolute hogwash. All you have to do is look in the scientific literature - there are many examples proving this point.

Answer 6

>"On a creationist website (answers in genesis) it said that this wasn't evolution because there is no new DNA and that information is lost, not gained. Is this true?"

Not it's not.  Answersingenesis is *LYING* to you.

They lie by *redefining* what the word "evolution" means, in order to make it easier to attack.

If you go to any scientific source, university, textbook, or encyclopedia, and look for a definition of the word "evolution" (from a biological standpoint) it is defined simply as "change in the inherited traits of a population over time" ... or (using slightly more precise words) change in the allele frequencies in a population over time."

As such, *ANY* change in the traits in the genome of the species (the allele frequencies) is evolution.  Period.

There is nothing in that definition that requires "new DNA" or "new information".  

Secondly, nowhere on answersingenesis is there a definition of what that vague phrase "new information" *means*.  Does that mean

a) An increase in the overall amount of DNA?

b) A new allele that did not exist before?

c) A new and *beneficial* allele?

In all cases, there are many examples of mutations and combinations of mutations that produce (a), (b), and/or (c).  But every time I try to explain this, the response of the Creationists is to say "no, that's not what 'new information' means, it means something else."  It is an exercise in moving the goalposts.

Answeringenesis knows this, and that's why they love this "no new information" argument.  

Third, the "no new information" argument is absurd even on its face.   To say that all resistance to antibiotics is the result of alleles that *already exist* in bacteria ... is to claim that all bacteria that have ever existed have always carried in their genomes, resistance to every antibiotic that man would ever invent ... long before man invented antibiotics.  And bacteria alive today are somewhere carrying in their genes, the resistance to all antibiotics that will ever be invented future ... *including antibiotics that haven't been invented yet.*  

It doesn't matter that bacteria can swap DNA ... this argument defies logic as it would make the collective genomes of all bacteria *HUGE*.

And finally, it denies the fact that we can often trace new proteins created by bacteria to a *SPECIFIC MUTATION* ... the alteration of an existing segment of DNA that *alters the characteristics of the encoded proteins*. See source for an excellent example.

Do NOT trust answersingenesis for science information, or to use science terms accurately.

Answer 7

> Antibiotics are substances that are secreted by bacteria to kill other bacteria when competing for limited nutrients.

Generally false.  Most of the antibiotics we use are derived from secretions of fungi.

> by combining a protein with the original, so the original cannot function properly

There are several mechanisms by which the various antibiotics work.  Penicillin, for example, is not a protein.

> no new DNA is generated, it is just moved around

Plasmids can be duplicated and can mutate; this process can "generate" new "alleles."